Triby review: Amazon Alexa finds an obvious home in this speaker-message board device

Alexa-enabled devices have potential, but they also have some flaws to overcome.

Amazon's Alexa has made its way into many homes, but now she's branching out. The voice assistant has always been an open platform, and we've seen a number of companies add support for Alexa to their services over the past year. Now, we're starting to see Alexa in products other than Amazon's Echo devices—the first one is a cute little speaker named Triby. The £159 multitasking device is a message board, radio, speaker, and an Alexa vessel all in one, and with its magnetic back, it's being billed as a perfect kitchen companion.

Triby will give us some idea of how well other companies will be able to integrate Alexa into their products. But also, and arguably more interestingly, it shows how companies are thinking about third-party hardware for Alexa and what these devices could and should be.

Design: Little refrigerator bot

Triby doesn't resemble the sleek, modern devices we're used to seeing today. It's got a square, bumper-encased body and a handle on top, and it resembles a flattened lunch box. The bumper helps protect Triby from unexpected falls, and that plus the rounded corners make it safe for kids to manhandle. The rest of its surface is covered in holes, since it's mostly a portable speaker, and it has a couple of physical buttons on its face for making calls, switching between radio stations, and playing or pausing music. Its rectangular e-ink display shows the date, time, and temperature by default. Since it's supposed to be a kitchen companion, it has two large magnets on the back so you can stick it to your refrigerator.

There's a curious yellow "flag" sitting in a slot on Triby's left side; it pops out when a member of your group sends a message to Triby (more on groups later). You can push it back in to let the sender know you've seen the message, like a physical version of a read receipt. Triby's opposite side has a big square button for manually waking Alexa for a voice command and a square hole for its charging cable.

Maybe it's the buttons or the toy-like design, but for some reason I really liked fiddling with Triby. It's pleasantly childlike without being too dumbed-down, and navigating it is easy once you know all of the buttons. Working from home, I'd tote Triby from room to room if I was listening to the radio and if I wanted to use Alexa in whatever room I was in. Triby has background noise cancellation technology built-in, too, so I could just as easily command Alexa from across my apartment.

Two radio buttons let you listen to programmed stations easily.

Valentina Palladino

The e-ink display shows messages from group members, as well as the time, date, and temperature.

Valentina Palladino

The push-to-talk button lets you talk to Alexa without saying her name.

Valentina Palladino

On top are volume buttons and a play/pause button.

Valentina Palladino

The yellow flag pops out when a new message arrives. You can respond with an emoji with the emoji button underneath.

Valentina Palladino

The radio station you listen to will show up on the display, as will the name of the group member you call.

Valentina Palladino

The back is magnetic so you can stick it to your refrigerator.

Valentina Palladino

Features: Alexa with a lot of hardware-focused extras

Let's talk about the elephant in the room first: Alexa. Triby is the first Alexa-enabled product made by a company other than Amazon. Unlike Apple with Siri, Amazon is letting other companies integrate Alexa and all her features into their products. As a speaker, Triby seems like an obvious fit for this, and it serves as a solid vessel for Amazon's voice assistant. Alexa works the same way as she does in the Echo and Amazon's other products—just say her name, ask questions, and she will answer.

All of the native Alexa features work when used via Triby—music control with Prime music, Flash Briefing news updates, shopping list and to-do list updates, smart home device control, and more. Aside from the short jingle Triby emits as soon as you wake Alexa, the experience is much the same as using an Echo. However, I do think the Echo is slightly more accurate and faster than Triby in recognising the word "Alexa" and hearing what I want to say. Sometimes I would say her name and the Triby would stay silent, or it would take Triby an extra few seconds to execute my demands.

There are also some things that Amazon products can do with Alexa that Triby can't. While you can stream Spotify music from your smartphone to Triby's speakers, you cannot ask Alexa to play certain music from your Spotify account. Also, many of Alexa's third-party skills don't work on Triby; the silly fortune cookie skill worked while the even sillier boo skill didn't. In the same vein, some Alexa features were a little spotty sometimes. For example, The Wall Street Journal's tech briefing segment in my news update didn't work—Alexa simply went silent when she got to that—but the other contributing sources to my Flash Briefing worked just fine. We’ve reached out to Triby and Amazon to find out more about what services do and don’t work, and we’ll update the review if we get a response.

Clearly there are kinks to using Alexa on a non-Amazon device, other than the occasional slowness. On the bright side, Triby will automatically receive all of the updates that Alexa receives, so the experience should consistently be similar to that of Amazon's native products.

Aside from Alexa, Triby is basically part radio, part e-ink walkie-talkie. I used the radio feature a lot more than I thought I would. You can set two priority radio stations to the two radio buttons on Triby and then add a bunch of stations to access via the small list button below them. I love listening to the radio on and off all day, and it's much easier to use the buttons to quickly browse through my favorite stations than ask Alexa to turn on one station or another.

Triby is very mobile within the home, too, since you can pick it up and bring it around with you. Amazon's Echo has to stay in one place since it needs a power source to operate. Triby can last up to two weeks on a single charge if you only use its basic functions, but a lot of Alexa use will drop the battery life down to days. Pressing and holding the push-to-talk button on its side will turn off Triby's microphones that are always listening for Alexa, and that will help conserve battery.

In addition to being a speakerphone when connected via Bluetooth to your smartphone, you can make VoIP calls from Triby to anyone in your household group. Similarly to the radio buttons, you can assign group members to each phone button and then more in the list button. Just tap to call them, and they receive the call through the Triby app on their smartphone. I can see how this would be perfect for children at home alone who need to contact family members quickly. Otherwise, it's only as convenient as Triby's placement in your home: if you keep it stuck to your fridge, it could be useful to give your partner a ring to ask them to pick up groceries before coming home. However, if my phone was within reach in that situation, I'd probably just use it to call them.

The other big Triby feature is the e-ink messaging system. Through the app, you can scribble or type out messages to send to Triby, and they'll pop up on its e-ink display. When a new message comes through, the yellow flag on Triby's side pops out, and whoever sees the message can push it back in to let you know they saw it. They can also press the emoji button right below the flag to respond with an emoji, which is a cute touch.

Again, I see this as a family-oriented feature that allows members to communicate with each other using a somewhat stationary object. Parents could message Triby to tell their kids to clean up the living room or start preparing dinner if they know the kids will be home before them, or even leave little notes for partners who may have different work schedules. Triby emits a little sound whenever a message comes through, so those at home will hear when there's messaging activity going on. Any message you send Triby could just as easily be sent as a text message, but the point of Triby (or Echo) is that it's anchored to your home, and it's meant to be used communally, where phones are more personal devices.